Literaturdatenbank
Literaturdatenbank |
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Roosenburg, W. M., Converse, P., & Smeenk, N. , Is head-starting the turtle conservation panacea that everyone wants it to be? Unpublished paper presented at 6th Symposium on the Ecology, Status & Conservation of Diamondback Terrapins.
Added by: Sarina Wunderlich (06 Jul 2014 16:17:17 UTC) |
| Resource type: Conference Paper BibTeX citation key: Roosenburg2013 View all bibliographic details  |
Categories: General Keywords: Chelidae, Habitat - habitat, Haltung - husbandry, Hydromedusa maximiliani, Schildkröten - turtles + tortoises Creators: Converse, Roosenburg, Smeenk Collection: 6th Symposium on the Ecology, Status & Conservation of Diamondback Terrapins |
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| Abstract |
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Malaclemys terrapin We evaluate a ten year demographic data set from a population in which large numbers of both naturally released hatchlings and headstarted individuals have been marked and released. We ask three fundamental questions concerning headstarts from our population. First, do they continue to grow at the accelerated rate after release? Second, do headstart females become reproductively active at an earlier age than their wild counterparts? Finally, is the survivorship of headstarts more similar to individuals their age or their size? Our data suggest that naturally released hatchlings’ growth quickly catches that of headstarts and as a consequence we did not observe a difference in minimum age of first reproduction between our two groups. Furthermore, the recapture rates (survivorship) of headstarts is more similar to that of their age counterparts than their size counterparts suggesting that the much anticipated increase in survival due to larger body size does not occur. Our findings suggest that headstarting although doing no harm, does not appear to provide the demographic “boost” of its intended purpose for terrapin populations. Thus conservation strategies for terrapins in areas of existing populations may achieve greater gains by predator control, restoring habitat, and protecting existing individuals. To this end, headstarting may provide an excellent tool for education and outreach that identifies and promotes effective conservation strategies for terrapins.
Added by: Sarina Wunderlich |